Dish antennas and receivers for audio/video transmission signals allow home viewers to receive television programming directly from satellite transmissions. The satellite dish antenna is typically secured to a mounting and must be aligned. Alignment involves physically boresighting the dish antenna so that its sensitive axis is directed at the broadcasting satellite.
The antenna dish is typically installed on the roof of a home, while the television is inside the home. In this arrangement, the antenna boresighting operation either requires two people to complete, or it requires an installer to travel back and forth between the antenna and the television several times, while trying to adjust the antenna for maximum signal reception.
For maximum signal reception, reasonably precise pointing of the antenna to the broadcast satellite is required. This task is not possible with visual boresighting. In the prior art, this task is accomplished by measuring the signal strength from the satellite as an indication of the precision pointing to the installer. It is also known to provide a visual indicator of the signal strength at the low noise block converter (LNB) of the satellite antenna. A light emitting diode presents a flashing rate to the installer that corresponds to the signal strength at the LNB. This method may not require the installer to go back and forth between television and the dish antenna, but is simply not capable of precise measurements.
Signal strength is not an accurate indication of the signal quality. However, it is typically not possible to measure signal quality parameters at the LNB without significant modifications to the LNB. In order to optimize the signal quality at the receiver, the quality of the signal must be used as an indicator and not merely the strength of a signal. It is possible to have a very strong signal that is poor quality. Prior art devices tend to correlate a strong signal with a quality signal and this is not always the case.
Another level is added to the complexity of the installation method when more than one satellite is involved in the system. For multiple satellites, the antenna position must be such that reception from all of the satellites is maximized. The simultaneous reception of signals from two or more satellites requires additional LNB's on the antenna feed assembly. A balanced alignment among all the LNB's is necessary. The installer must be skilled enough, or lucky enough, to adjust tilt, elevation and azimuth alignments for all of the LNB's and minimize the number of trips back and forth between the antenna on the roof and the receiver in the house.
There is a need for a method and system that allows precision antenna orientation adjustments that can be made by a single user without making several trips between the satellite dish outside of a dwelling and the television inside the dwelling.